


you're not where you belong (inside my heart)

by coffeesuperhero



Category: West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-02
Updated: 2011-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>Disclaimers</b>:  This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters & situations belong to Aaron Sorkin, NBC Universal, and various subsidiaries. Title from a song by Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson, which I also had nothing to do with.</p><p><b>A/N</b>: AU. Spoilers up to In the Shadow of Two Gunmen. Thanks to <a href="http://leiascully.livejournal.com/profile">leiascully</a> for looking this over!</p>
    </blockquote>





	you're not where you belong (inside my heart)

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimers** : This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters & situations belong to Aaron Sorkin, NBC Universal, and various subsidiaries. Title from a song by Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson, which I also had nothing to do with.
> 
>  **A/N** : AU. Spoilers up to In the Shadow of Two Gunmen. Thanks to [leiascully](http://leiascully.livejournal.com/profile) for looking this over!

It starts at the funeral. Donna holds her hand out, fingers splayed, and Sam does the same, both of them reaching for someone who is no longer there and finding each other instead. They stand side by side in the rain for hours, not even aware that they're not alone, that Toby and C.J. are standing beside them, two silent sentinels wrapped in their own grief, holding the umbrellas that are keeping the rain at bay.

Sam has known sadness before, but he has always had words for it, a verbal calculus by which to define the parameters of his emotions. For this he has nothing. When they asked him to speak at the White House memorial service, he could only stare blankly back at them for a few long, uncomfortable moments, until finally Toby reached over, squeezed his shoulder lightly, just once, and said, "Leo will do it."

He doesn't remember what Toby wrote, but it's the only time in his memory that he's seen Leo cry.

Donna moves through the next few days feeling like she is the one who is no longer there. The aides in the bullpen go quiet when she walks through, and the other assistants seem unable to make even the simplest of conversations with her. Even Margaret can think of nothing to say. She packs up his office alone, keeping the door closed for those frequent moments when she stumbles upon some new grief. She throws nothing away, not even the coffee-stained desk calendar upon which he has marked her birthday, her vacation days, and the stupid day he always jokingly called their anniversary.

When the boxes are neatly stacked and labeled, Leo calls her in, tells her that there will always be a place for her if she wants one. She doesn't know how to respond; she doesn't know what she wants. "Take some time," Leo says. "Take all the time you need."

He tells her a story about a man falling into a hole, and she sinks down into one of the chairs in front of his desk and feels like she'll never stop crying. Leo sits with her, solid and patient and comforting, until her sobs subside and she can speak again.

"You should talk to Sam," he says, just before she closes the door.

She does. He shows up at her place, or she shows up at his, a bottle of wine or a six pack of beer, and they speak with a silence that says everything.

For a few weeks, Sam tries to work, but all his words seem stripped of their meaning, and the third time he brings Toby a draft of something that should have been written days ago, he drops his notebook onto the couch, stares at the floor, and says simply, "I think I need some time."

"It's yours," Toby tells him, like this is a moratorium instead of a termination. They both know the truth, but neither of them is willing to acknowledge it, so they write their own little work of fiction.

"I never said thank you," Sam says, pausing in the door of Toby's office, coat over his arm, keys in his hand. "For the thing. At the memorial service. I never said thank you."

"Don't," Toby replies, and Sam smiles, really smiles, for what feels like the first time in a lifetime.

"Okay," he says, and then he's gone.

He's at Donna's, suitcase in hand, within hours of leaving his office.

"You're leaving," Donna says, even though it's obvious.

He bobs his head up and down, and she's surprised by the boyishness of the gesture, by how much it reminds her of Josh, and for a moment she feels like someone is squeezing her heart.

Sam frowns apologetically at her, understanding her without need for explanation. He pulls an extra plane ticket from his coat pocket. "Come with me."

"Where?"

"Bermuda," he tells her, and she knows immediately what he has not said, knows that he means that it's safe, that there are no memories of him there, but as surely as she knows Sam's intentions, she knows that they are for nothing.

"It won't work," she says quietly, reaching for his hand. He pulls her close instead, and she buries her face in the warm collar of his coat. "Anywhere we go, we'll bring him with us."

"I know," Sam says, resting his head against hers.

"I can't... Sam, I can't afford to do this," Donna says. She pulls back, but she holds onto his hands, her last best connection to a world without Josh.

"I'm not asking you to," he says, and she knows that with Sam, there is no pretense, no hidden agenda, just the earnest promise of a new day. "Donna, we're dying here. We're ghosts. Please. Please, come with me."

"Why are you doing this for me?" she asks, even though by now she is certain that she knows the answer.

Without hesitation, he replies, "Because I never told him, either, Donna," and she has to squeeze her eyes shut to keep the tears from coming.

"Bermuda?" she asks, when she can trust herself to speak without sobbing.

"Bermuda," he answers, and she leans forward and kisses him once, softly, before she says, "Let's go."


End file.
